The Mycenaean Dialect

When Mycenaean Linear B was deciphered by Michael Ventris,
it was thought to be an archaic form of Greek, preceding Homer by almost
five centuries. A name was proposed for itOld Achaean.
However, a closer examination of Mycenaean resulted in a startling conclusion
expressed by A. Tovar:

But contrary to what we expect from Greek documents
of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C., the Mycenaean dialect
is not seen to be closer to proto-Greek than are Homer or Thucydides.
If sometimes Mycenaean shows very primitive features, it also sometimes
appears more advanced than the dialects of the first millennium.1

John Chadwick, who collaborated with Ventris in the decipherment
of Linear B, writes: Since 1952 important new work has modified
the general view and this has entailed a shift of emphasis, and the abandonment
of the name proposed for this dialect, Old Achaean.2

The Mycenaean Linear B dialect was found to be best preserved
in the southern (Arcado-Cyprian) group, and to be distinct from the Ionian-Attic
dialect; the theory that Mycenaean was the mother tongue of all Greek
dialects conflicts with the fact expressed in these words: But Mycenaean
presents many dialectal phenomena of quite recent aspect and is in some
traits as far from common [early] Greek as the dialects known
a millennium later.3

Against the view of E. Risch that Mycenaean was the proto-language
of all Greek dialects, Tovar writes: The weak point in Rischs
argument is that it ignores the fact that against the innovations which
appear in Mycenaean (and Arcado-Cyprian), Ionic shows many old forms.
E. Benveniste, too, expressed his criticism of the view of Mycenaean as
proto-Greek, or Old Achaean:

It must be admitted that according to the hypothesis maintained
by Risch during this period [the 450 years between the last Mycenaean
texts and the first literary testimony in eighth-century Greek] a remarkable
conservation of Mycenaean was upheld in its Arcado-Cypriote dialect
and a profound evolution of Mycenaean in its Ionian dialect took place.
Is it not more plausible to assume that in the epoch of our tablets
the Ionian (not represented in the tablets) already substantially differed?4

Four hundred and fifty years passed between the last Mycenaean
texts and the first literary testimony. Is not the confusion discussed
here a result of this erroneous premise? If the true figure is something
like sixty years and not five hundred, all perplexities disappear.